Thursday, April 17, 2008

Hip-Hop Artist Refuses To Stand Against The Pirate Bay

A Swedish hip-hop artist who the IFPI used as leverage in their legal battle against The Pirate Bay, wants nothing to do with the case. Without consultation, the IFPI were claiming damages on his behalf from The Pirate Bay, even though they don’t even own the rights to his music.

Like most of the music industry associations around the world, the IFPI claims to champion the cause of the artist, by promoting them and protecting their interests. One such artist is Max Peezay, a Swedish hip-hop artist who is mentioned in the IFPI legal case against The Pirate Bay. It’s claimed that money was lost as a result of Max’s music being available for download via the site.

The thing is, the CEO of the IFPI in Sweden, Lars Gustafsson, never asked Max Peezay if he wanted to be used in the case against The Pirate Bay. If he had, he might’ve been clear on Max’s views on this matter, in that he wants nothing to do with it.

Brokep of The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak: “He’s pro-file sharing. Some of his lyrics already state that. And he’s not willing to feel like a sell-out to please Ifpi - who never actually asked him for his permission to sue in his name.”

Characteristically over-stepping the mark, the IFPI forgot a little detail when putting Max Peezay forward in The Pirate Bay case says Brokep: “In fact, they [IFPI] didn’t even own the rights to his music.”

According to a SVD report, due to the refusal of Max to being involved in the case, the IFPI have reduced the amount of money they are claiming from The Pirate Bay by roughly 12,000 EUR (apprx $19,000), which unfortunately won’t reduce the $2.5m total claim by much.

Brokep has a message for all of the other pro-filesharing artists: “What we’re waiting for now is all of those other artists to speak up as well. We know many of the artists actually put up their albums on The Pirate Bay themselves - and we’re really happy about that! And we know that you don’t like to be abused by the record labels in this farce. So we want you to show your support. Not necessarily for TPB but for your fans. It’s an important message to send to the community.”

The Pirate Bay case will generate huge amounts of publicity when it kicks into high gear so it’ll be interesting to see where the artists really stand on this issue and who they align themselves with, the IFPI - or the public.